Tools and other artifacts provide the earliest evidence of human activity on Cyprus; artifacts and burned animal bones found at Aetokremnos on the southern coast have been dated to about 12,000 years ago. Whether these finds indicate a permanent human occupation of the island or intermittent visits by seafaring hunter-gatherers remains a source of debate. The first known settlement, dated as early as 9,000 years ago, was at Khirokitia (near the southern coast), a town of about 2,000 inhabitants who lived in well-built two-story round stone houses. The presence of small quantities of obsidian, a type of volcanic rock not native to the island, is the only sign of the island’s contact with other cultures. Khirokitia and several smaller associated settlements disappeared after a few centuries, leaving the island uninhabited for nearly 2,000 years. The beginning of the next period of habitation dates to 4500–4000 bc; the sites of small villages from that time have been excavated north of Kourion at Sotira near the southern coast and also in the Kyrenia Mountains, and ornaments of picrolite (a variety of soapstone) and copper have also been found in those areas.

The Bronze Age

The Chalcolithic Period (Copper Age), which dates from 3000 to 2500 bc, was followed by the Bronze Age. Several styles of well-made decorative pottery from the Middle Bronze Age (1900–1600 bc) demonstrate advanced craftsmanship, and imports from Crete, Anatolia, Syria, and Egypt prove that external trade had begun by this time. It is possible that the name Alashiya or Alasia, both of which occur in Hittite and Egyptian records in connection with the supply of copper, refers to Cyprus. These trade links probably accounted for the foundation of new settlements in the eastern part of the island that became international trading centres.

The Late Bronze Age (1600–1050 bc) was one of the most formative periods of the life of ancient Cyprus. The island’s international contacts extended from the Aegean Sea to the Levant and the Nile River delta. (Thutmose III of Egypt claimed Cyprus as one of his conquests about 1500 bc.) Writing, in the form of a linear script known as Cypro-Minoan, was borrowed from Crete. Cypriot craftsmen were distinguished for fine jewelry, ivory carving, and bronze figures. From about 1400 bc Mycenaean pottery was imported from mainland Greece, and it is possible that Mycenaean artists accompanied the merchants. There is evidence of Greek immigration from the Peloponnese after 1200 bc, with the collapse of Mycenaean civilization. West of Famagusta was Engomi, the principal city and port; its massive city walls and houses of hewn stone demonstrate a high level of prosperity.

Greek immigration

The immigration of settlers from Greece, which had begun at least by 1200, led to the foundation of Greek kingdoms covering most of the island, and, since the start of the 1st millennium bc, the Greek language has been predominant in Cyprus; the fact that the dialectal form in which it first appears is known as Arcado-Cypriot confirms traditions of the Peloponnesian origin—and specifically of the Arcadian origin—of the immigrants. They founded new cities, which became the capitals of six ancient Greek kingdoms on Cyprus: Curium (Greek: Kourion), Paphos, Marion, Soli (Greek: Soloi), Lapithos, and Salamis. About 800 bc a Phoenician colony was founded at Citium (Greek: Kition), near modern Larnaca, as a dependency of the mother city, Tyre. A seventh kingdom, Amathus, remained for some time under the control of the earlier indigenous inhabitants; the language used there was called Eteo-Cypriot (“True Cypriot”) by the Greeks. Amathus became active politically, especially in external trade relations. Spectacular chariot burials of the royal family of Salamis—which closely match descriptions found in the Homeric poems, suggesting inspiration by them—are evidence of an advancing civilization in the late Iron Age.

External political influences

Assyrian and Egyptian domination

In 709 bc Sargon II of Assyria erected a stela at Citium recording the fact that seven Cypriot kings had paid him homage; subsequent Assyrian documents mention 11 tributary kingdoms: the seven already cited plus Citium, Kyrenia, Tamassos, and Idalium. This subordination to Assyria, probably rather nominal, lasted until about 663. For the next hundred years, Cyprus enjoyed a period of complete independence and massive development. Epic poetry grew increasingly popular, and much was written on the island; Stasinus of Cyprus, credited with the authorship of the lost epic poem Cypria, was highly regarded among the poets of this literary style in the 7th century. Bronze, iron, delicate jewelry, and ivory work are characteristic of this period; notable examples are the ivory throne and bedstead excavated from a royal tomb at Salamis dating from about 700 bc.

When the Assyrian empire finally broke up at the end of the 7th century bc, Egypt, under the Saite dynasty, became the predominant power in the eastern Mediterranean. About 569 the Cypriot kingdoms recognized the pharaoh Ahmose II as their overlord. Direct Egyptian influence was not always apparent, but many limestone sculptures reproduced Egyptian conventions in dress, and some statues were directly inspired by Egyptian models. A more important influence in the late Archaic period (750–475 bc) came from the artistic schools of Ionia, which was also probably the same source of the inspiration for issuing coinage; the first Cypriot coins were circulated for King Euelthon of Salamis in 560–525 bc.

The Persian empire

In 525 bc the Cypriot kings transferred their allegiance to the Achaemenid (Persian) conquerors of Egypt. The Cypriots retained their independence until the accession of Darius I in 522 but were then incorporated into the fifth satrapy of the Persian empire. When the Ionians revolted in 499, all the kingdoms of Cyprus except Amathus joined them; the revolt was subsequently suppressed, culminating in sieges of Paphos and Soli. During Xerxes I’s invasion of Greece in 480 bc, the Cypriot kings, like the Ionians, contributed naval contingents to his forces. Cyprus remained under Persian rule during the 5th century in spite of a major Athenian expedition there in about 450. Evagoras, who became king of Salamis in 411 bc, maintained a pro-Hellenic policy—with some help from Athens—and succeeded in extending his rule over a large portion of the island. He was defeated by the Persians in 381 and was assassinated three years later. After the victory of Alexander the Great over the last Achaemenid ruler, Darius III, at Issus in 333 bc, the Cypriot kings rallied to Alexander and assisted him at the siege of Tyre. During the Classical period (475–325 bc), Cypriot art came under strong Attic influence.

Hellenistic and Roman rule

Alexander allowed the Cypriot kingdoms to continue but took from them the right to issue coinage. After his death in 323, his successors fought for control of Cyprus. The eventual victor was Ptolemy I of Egypt, who suppressed the kingdoms and made the island a province of his Egyptian kingdom. He forced the last king of Salamis, Nicocreon, to commit suicide in 310 bc, together with all his family. For two and a half centuries, Cyprus remained a Ptolemaic possession, ruled by a strategus, or governor-general.

Cyprus as a Roman province

Cyprus was annexed by the Roman Republic in 58 bc and, along with Cilicia on the coast of Anatolia, was made into a Roman province. One of its first proconsuls was the orator and writer Cicero. Cyprus was briefly ceded to Cleopatra VII of Egypt by Julius Caesar, and this status was confirmed by Mark Antony, but, after the victory of Caesar’s heir, Octavian (subsequently the emperor Augustus), over Mark Antony and Cleopatra at Actium in 31 bc, it became a Roman possession again. Cyprus was originally administered as part of the “imperial” province of Syria but became a separate “senatorial” province in 22 bc. Its governors resumed the old republican title of proconsul, although there is evidence that Augustus did influence the Senate’s choice. For the next 600 years, Cyprus enjoyed peace, disturbed only by occasional earthquakes and epidemics and by a Jewish uprising suppressed by a lieutenant of the future emperor Hadrian in ad 116. Many large public buildings were erected, among them a gymnasium and theatre at Salamis, a theatre at Kourion, and the governor’s palace at Paphos.

Early Christianity

One of the most important events in the Roman period was the introduction of Christianity to Cyprus. The apostle Paul, accompanied by Barnabas (later St. Barnabas), a native of the Cypriot Jewish community, preached there about ad 45 and converted the proconsul, Sergius Paulus. By the time of Constantine I the Great, Christians were numerous on the island and may have constituted a majority of the population.

Byzantine Empire

After the division of the Roman Empire in 395, Cyprus remained subject to the Eastern, or Byzantine, Empire at Constantinople, being part of the diocese of the Orient governed from Antioch. In ecclesiastical matters, however, the Church of Cyprus was autocephalous—i.e., independent of the Patriarchate of Antioch—having been given that privilege in 488 by the emperor Zeno. The archbishop received the rights, still valued and practiced today, to carry a sceptre instead of a crosier and to sign his name in purple ink, the imperial colour.

There was a break in direct rule from Constantinople in 688 when Justinian II and the caliph ʿAbd al-Malik signed an unusual treaty neutralizing the island, which had been subject to Arab raids. For almost 300 years Cyprus was a kind of condominium (joint dominion) of the Byzantine Empire and the Caliphate, and, although the treaty was frequently violated by both sides, the arrangement lasted until 965, when the emperor Nicephorus II Phocas gained Cyprus completely for the Byzantines. The period that followed was one of modest prosperity.

A remarkable mosaic of the 6th century, at Kiti, is the best example of Eastern Roman art of that date, comparable to works at Ravenna, Italy. Another equally remarkable mosaic of roughly the same date, at Lythrangomi, was destroyed in 1974. Wall paintings demonstrate close contact with Constantinople; those at Asinou, in particular, are noteworthy as being the earliest of an unparalleled series of mural paintings showing successive developments of Byzantine art.

About 1185 a Byzantine governor of Cyprus, Isaac Comnenus, rebelled and proclaimed himself emperor. Isaac resisted attacks from the Byzantine emperors Andronicus I Comnenus and Isaac II Angelus, but in 1191, on engaging in hostilities with an English Crusader fleet under King Richard I (the Lion-Heart), he was defeated and imprisoned. The island was seized by Richard, from whom it was acquired by the Crusading order of the Knights Templar; because they were unable to pay his price, he took it back and sold it to Guy of Lusignan, the dispossessed king of Jerusalem.

The Lusignan kingdom and Genoese and Venetian rule

Guy, a Frenchman who called himself lord of Cyprus, invited families that had lost their lands in Palestine after the fall of Jerusalem to the Muslims under Saladin to settle in Cyprus and thereby laid the basis for a feudal monarchy that survived to the end of the Middle Ages. His brother and successor, Amalric, obtained the title of king from the Holy Roman emperor Henry VI. The earliest kings of the Lusignan dynasty were involved in the affairs of the small territory still left to the kingdom of Jerusalem, and this commitment drained the resources of Cyprus until the kingdom collapsed in 1291 with the fall of Acre. Over the next hundred years, Cyprus gained a reputation in Europe for having immense riches, especially among its nobles and Famagustan merchants. Famagusta’s wealth derived from its position as the last entrepôt for European trade adjacent to the Levant.

The kings of Cyprus had kept alive the Crusading idea, and the island remained a base for counterattacks against the Muslims. In 1361 the Cypriot king Peter I devoted himself to organizing a Crusade; he captured Adalia (Antalya) on the Cilician coast of Anatolia, and in 1365, after having collected money and mercenaries in western Europe, he seized and sacked Alexandria. He was not able to maintain the conquest, however, and was soon forced to abandon Alexandria. At his son’s accession the rivalry between Genoa and Venice over control of Cyprus’s valuable trade resulted in Genoa’s taking possession of Famagusta and holding on to it for nearly a century, which thus led to a rapid decline in the island’s prosperity. In 1426 an expedition from Egypt raided and overran the island, which from then on paid tribute to Cairo. The last Lusignan king, James II, seized the throne with the help of an Egyptian force and in 1464 expelled the Genoese from Famagusta. He married a Venetian noblewoman, Caterina Cornaro, and, on his death (which was followed by that of his posthumous son), she succeeded him as the last monarch of Cyprus. During her reign she was under strong Venetian pressure and was eventually persuaded to cede Cyprus to the Republic of Venice. It remained a Venetian possession for 82 years, until its capture by the Ottomans.

Ottoman rule

A Turkish invading force landed in Cyprus in 1570 and seized Nicosia; the following year Famagusta fell after a long siege, which ushered in the beginning of more than three centuries of Ottoman rule. The Latin church was suppressed and the Orthodox hierarchy restored; after feudal tenure was abolished, the Greek peasantry acquired inalienable and hereditary rights to land. Taxes were at first reduced but later greatly increased and arbitrarily raised. In the 18th century the Orthodox archbishop was made responsible for tax collection.

Thousands of Muslims were settled on the island immediately following the Ottoman conquest. To the sultans Cyprus was an unimportant province; its governors were indolent, inefficient, somewhat oppressive, and corrupt. There were Turkish uprisings in 1764 and 1833, and in 1821 the Orthodox archbishop was hanged on suspicion of sympathy with the rebels in mainland Greece. The sultanate’s various imperial proclamations in the 19th century promising reform had no effect in Cyprus, where local opposition blocked them.

British rule

The Cyprus Convention of 1878 between Britain and Turkey provided that Cyprus, while remaining under Turkish sovereignty, should be administered by the British government. Britain’s aim in occupying Cyprus was to secure a base in the eastern Mediterranean for possible operations in the Caucasus or Mesopotamia as part of the British guarantee to secure the sultan’s Asian possessions from Russia. In 1914, when Britain and Turkey became adversaries during World War I, the former annexed the island; Turkey recognized this under the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923. Two years later Cyprus was officially declared a crown colony.

British occupation was initially welcomed by the Greek population, which from the start expected the British to transfer Cyprus to Greece. The Greek Cypriots’ demand for enosis (union with Greece) was opposed by Turkish Cypriots, constituting a major division in the island’s politics; a string of almost annual petitions demanding enosis were matched by counterpetitions and demonstrations from the Turkish Cypriots. Britain had made an offer to transfer the island in 1915, on condition that Greece fulfill its treaty obligations toward Serbia when that country was attacked by Bulgaria; the Greek government refused it, and the offer was not renewed. In 1931 the demand for enosis led to riots in Nicosia.

Cyprus was untouched by World War II, apart from a few air raids. In 1947 the governor, in accordance with the British Labour Party’s declaration on colonial policy, published proposals for greater self-government. They were rejected in favour of the slogan “enosis and only enosis.” In 1955 Lieutenant Colonel Georgios Grivas (known as Dighenis), a Cypriot who had served as an officer in the Greek army, began a concerted campaign for enosis. His National Organization of Cypriot Struggle (Ethnikí Orgánosis Kipriakoú Agónos; EOKA) bombed public buildings and attacked and killed both Greek Cypriot and British opponents of enosis. British jurist Lord Radcliffe, among others, suggested self-government in 1956, but all of the proposals were rejected, and the attacks continued. Archbishop Makarios III, who as ethnarch considered it his duty to champion the national aspirations of the Greek Cypriots, was deported to the Seychelles. He was released from exile in March 1957 and soon made his headquarters in Athens. By that time the operations of EOKA had been reduced, but on the other hand the Turkish Cypriot minority, led by Fazıl Küçük, expressed alarm and demanded either retrocession to Turkey or partition. Public opinion in Greece and Turkey rallied in support of the two communities, respectively; riots ensued, and Greek residents were expelled from Turkey. Despite mediation by the United Nations, the two sides reached no solution.

The Greek and Turkish governments took a decisive step in February 1959, when they reached an agreement in Zürich. Later that same month, at a conference in London, the British government and representatives of the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot communities accepted the Greek-Turkish compromise. In 1960 treaties that made Cyprus an independent republic, with Britain retaining sovereignty over military bases at Akrotiri and Dhekélia, were ratified in Nicosia. According to the terms of the treaties, the new republic would not participate in a political or economic union with any other state, nor would it be subject to partition. Greece, Turkey, and Britain guaranteed the independence, integrity, and security of the republic, and Greece and Turkey agreed to respect the integrity of the areas remaining under British sovereignty. In December 1959 Makarios was elected president and Küçük vice president, both of whom could exercise a veto in matters relating to security, defense, and foreign affairs. Turkish Cypriots, who made up less than one-fifth of the population, were to represent three-tenths of the civil service and two-fifths of the army and to elect three-tenths of the House of Representatives, and a joint Greek and Turkish military headquarters was also to be established.

The Republic of Cyprus

The first general election occurred in July 1960. Of the 35 seats allotted to the Greek Cypriots, 30 were won by supporters of Makarios and 5 were allotted to the communist-led Progressive Party of the Working People (AKEL). All 15 Turkish Cypriot seats were won by supporters of Küçük. Cyprus became a republic on August 16, 1960, and was admitted as a member of the UN. The British government agreed to provide financial assistance over a period of five years, and Cyprus gained membership in the Commonwealth in March 1961.

Despite these arrangements, the long-standing conflict between the Greek Cypriot majority and the Turkish Cypriot minority intensified following independence. The difficulties the government encountered in implementing some of the complicated provisions of the constitution, particularly regarding local government and finance, led Makarios to propose 13 amendments to Küçük in late 1963. These were rejected by the Turkish government and the Turkish Cypriots, and fighting broke out between the two Cypriot communities. As a result, the area controlled by the Turkish Cypriots was reduced to a few enclaves, and Nicosia was divided by a cease-fire line—known as the Green Line—policed by British troops. In March 1964 the UN Security Council agreed to send to Cyprus a multinational peacekeeping force, the mandate of which was extended repeatedly as the conflict continued. In 1964 the Turkish air force intervened after intensified fighting broke out in the northwest. Contingents of troops and officers from Greece and Turkey were taken into the island clandestinely to command and train the forces raised by the two communities. Grivas, who had been promoted to lieutenant general in the Greek army, returned from Greece to command the Greek Cypriot National Guard. In 1967 an incident in the southeast led to a Turkish ultimatum to Greece, backed by the threat of invasion. The military junta then ruling Greece complied by withdrawing the mainland contingents and General Grivas. An uneasy peace ensued, but intercommunal talks failed to produce a solution.

Makarios was reelected president in 1968 by an overwhelming majority and won again in 1973. Although he had originally been a leader in the campaign for enosis, many Greek Cypriots and mainland Greeks believed that, by the time he became president, he was content with Cyprus’s independence. Angered, dissidents tried to assassinate Makarios in 1970 and 1973, and in 1973 he was denounced by the three suffragan bishops who were ecclesiastically subordinate to him. Meanwhile, Grivas had returned secretly to Cyprus in 1971 to resume the campaign for enosis; he died in Limassol in 1974.

Establishment of an independent Turkish state

On July 15, 1974, a detachment of the National Guard, led by officers from mainland Greece, launched a coup to assassinate Makarios and establish enosis. They demolished the presidential palace, but Makarios escaped. A former EOKA member, Nikos Sampson, was proclaimed president of Cyprus. Five days later Turkish forces landed at Kyrenia to overthrow Sampson’s government. They were met by vigorous resistance, but the Turks were successful in establishing a bridgehead around Kyrenia and linking it with the Turkish sector of Nicosia. On July 23 Greece’s junta fell, and a democratic government under Konstantinos Karamanlis took power. At the same time, Sampson was replaced in Cyprus by Glafcos Clerides, who as president of the House of Representatives automatically succeeded the head of state in the latter’s absence. As required by treaty, the three guarantor powers—Britain, Greece, and Turkey—met for discussions in Geneva, but the Turkish advance continued until mid-August. By that time Turkey controlled roughly the northern third of the island. In December Makarios returned and resumed the presidency, and a few months later Turkish leaders proclaimed a Turkish Federated State of Cyprus under Rauf Denktash as president. Since that time the boundary between the two sectors has unofficially been known as “the Attila Line,” named for the Turkish army’s battle plan.

In May 1983 Denktash broke off all intercommunal talks, and in November he proclaimed the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC); the republic’s independence was recognized only by Turkey. The UN Security Council condemned the move and repeated its demand, first made in 1974, that all foreign troops be withdrawn from the Republic of Cyprus. Renewed UN peace-proposal efforts in 1984 and 1985 were unsuccessful, and in May 1985 a constitution for the TRNC was approved by referendum.

The failure of intercommunal talks

Negotiations between Clerides and Denktash, representing the Greek and Turkish Cypriots, respectively, had begun in 1968. They continued inconclusively until 1974, the Turks demanding and the Greeks rejecting the proposal for a bizonal federation with a weak central government. In February 1975 the Turkish Cypriots proclaimed the Turkish-occupied area the Turkish Federated State of Cyprus (a body calling itself the Provisional Cyprus-Turkish Administration had been in existence among Turkish Cypriots since 1967); Denktash announced that their purpose was not independence but federation. Talks were resumed in Vienna in 1975 and 1976 under UN auspices, and in early 1977 Makarios and Denktash agreed on acceptable guidelines for a bizonal federation.

In August 1977 Makarios died, and Spyros Kyprianou, president of the House of Representatives, became acting president of the republic; he returned unopposed to that office for a five-year term in January 1978 and was reelected in 1983; Turkish Cypriots took no part in the 1983 election.

Kyprianou lost his bid for a third term in 1988 to an independent candidate, George Vassiliou. He in turn lost by a narrow margin in 1993 to Clerides, a rightist, who was reelected in 1998. At first Clerides showed no willingness to deal with the Turkish Cypriot leader Denktash, but the two eventually met in New York City under UN auspices. The government of the Republic of Cyprus (composed solely of Greek Cypriots) began applying for membership to the European Union (EU) in 1990, though its admittance was repeatedly blocked by Turkey and its supporters.

In late 2002 the EU offered Cyprus membership in its organization on the condition that reunification talks conclude by March 2003 (barring reunification, membership would go to the Greek Cypriot portion of the country only). Just weeks before the March deadline, Tassos Papadopoulos defeated Clerides and assumed the presidency of the Republic of Cyprus, but no agreement was reached. The following month TRNC leaders relaxed restrictions along the Green Line that divided the island, and, for the first time in some 30 years, Cypriots moved with relative freedom throughout the country. In 2004 Turkish Cypriots voted to accept a UN-backed reunification plan, while the Greek Cypriot community—led by Papadopoulos—overwhelmingly rejected the plan; as a result, Greek Cyprus alone was admitted to the EU in May 2004. Although the TRNC remained unrecognized, in the wake of the TRNC’s affirmative vote in the 2004 ballot, the EU expressed interest in reducing its isolation through measures such as aid and direct trade. In spite of this commitment, however, such measures were not immediately forthcoming.

In early 2008 Papadopoulos was narrowly defeated in the first round of voting during the country’s presidential elections, a move thought to signal declining support by Greek Cypriots for the country’s continued division. Dimitris Christofias, leader of Cyprus’s communist party and an advocate of renewed unification efforts, was elected to the presidency shortly thereafter. Soon after his election, Christofias reached an agreement with Mehmet Ali Talat, the leader of the TRNC, to open a crossing at Ledra Street in the divided capital of Nicosia. The division of Ledra Street, split since 1964, had for many come to symbolize the broader partition of the island. Unification talks between Talat and Christofias were under way in later months, although efforts appeared to come under threat in April 2010 with the defeat of Talat and the election of Derviş Eroğlu to the TRNC presidency. However, Eroğlu, who had favoured independence for northern Cyprus over unification, insisted that negotiations would continue under his leadership. In legislative elections in May 2011, gains by the opposition Democratic Rally and a record number of abstentions were interpreted by many as a sign of voter dissatisfaction with the progress of reunification talks.

Cyprus became entangled in the euro-zone debt crisis in early 2011 when the Cypriot banks’ large holdings of Greek government bonds made it impossible for Cyprus to borrow money from international markets. To control rising budget deficits, the Cypriot government enacted a package of austerity measures that included pay freezes for public-sector workers and cuts in social spending. After an EU-sanctioned restructuring of Greek sovereign debt in June 2012 inflicted huge losses on two of Cyprus’s largest banks, Cyprus requested a bailout from the EU and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). However, negotiations over the terms proceeded slowly, with Christofias unwilling to enact the bank reforms and privatizations requested by the EU and IMF.

Presidential elections in February 2013 were dominated by the financial crisis and the bailout. Nicos Anastasiades, the centre-right candidate, pledged to seek a quick agreement with the EU and IMF, whereas his main rival, Stavros Malas, also favoured the bailout but expressed greater reservations about accepting austerity measures. Anastasiades was elected on February 24 with 57.5 percent of the vote. In his victory speech, Anastasiades affirmed that finalizing a bailout agreement would be his first priority as president.

In March Cyprus agreed to terms for a bailout package that included €10 billion (about $13 billion) in loans from the EU and the IMF and required an estimated contribution of €7 billion (about $9 billion) from Cyprus, to be raised by restructuring the Cypriot banking sector, raising corporate taxes, and selling gold reserves. The total amount of Cyprus’s contribution to the bailout increased to €13 billion (about $17 billion) in April.